


Lem's Story

by andrewsarchus



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Infanticide, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrewsarchus/pseuds/andrewsarchus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too tall, face like a hatchet and eyes like a trout.  No denying that she was skinny, and that her face came to a point.  But Harra Mattulich was beautiful, was the thing.  The most beautiful lady in all the worlds, so far as Lem knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lem's Story

She wasn't pretty. That's what they all told him. Too tall, face like a hatchet and eyes like a trout. Only it's not how Lem saw her. A town like Silvy Vale, everyone knows everyone, and there aren't that many of age for anyone, really. So he knew Harra since before he could walk, and sort of knew she might be a match for him since he knew that boys and girls got matched when they were older. But the first time Lem Csurik saw Harra Mattulich as anything more than a pesty kid was at the dance for the Emperor's Birthday, when he was laughing with the other girls—Theckla Rantin and Sosh Karal and all the others, and she had her head thrown back, and was laughing like the rain falling in midsummer.

Course, that was also the first dance were Pa Csurik had let him have the maple mead, so his recollections of the evening were hazy at best. But seeing Harra like that, that stuck. He almost couldn't see her any other way; when she was getting water from the trough, or coming back with brillberries or chanterelles, he could see that laugh in her eyes, smell the fire in her hair. And when the other boys his age chased after Sosh or the others, he went after Harra.

Maybe she wasn't pretty. It could be that Lem was wrong, and they were right. No denying that she was skinny, and that her face came to a point. But Harra Mattulich was beautiful, was the thing. The most beautiful lady in all the worlds, so far as Lem knew.

#

Lem pulled at the collar of his shirt. It was embroidered all the way up, with red and green thread and fiddly little buttons that were pulling at the seams, and he knew, he just knew, that it was going to rip, and then Ma would have his hide, because there were three other Csurik boys who'd need the shirt for their weddings, and it wasn't like they could just run to Vorbarr Sultana and get a new one if this one went.

And he had to remember what he was going to say, and there were the oats he had to give her . . . There was a sudden panicked checking of his pockets, and then an equally hurried repacking so he wouldn't look a fool. If he forgot, or did it wrong, or the shirt gave up at the wrong time, sure, Ma'd be steaming, but Harra would . . . . He wouldn't look a fool before Harra. Course, if she was there, he wouldn't be so flustered. That was the hardest part, really. Not remembering what to say when, not wearing a shirt with a collar that was too small and seams that were older than Silvy Vale. It was not seeing Harra for the day of the wedding. That was when he needed her, to tell him to stop being foolish, to set the shirt right, and give him the look that meant that things were going to go right.

Lem pulled at the collar of his shirt again, and waited for Harra to come out in her wedding dress. It would go right. She'd come out like the dawn, and he could stop worrying, and it would all go right.

And then she did.

Later, when he had gotten through it all without forgetting too many words, and hadn't done more than spilled a little gravy on the shirt's sleeve, which was fine because the sleeves were dyed dark anyway, he took Harra back to the house he had built.

It was most of a year's work; a bit more than a year, if you counted cutting and dressing the timber. But it wasn't anything special. One room with a fire, and a porch for living on in the summer, same as most people had. But Harra's eyes opened wide when she saw it. "Oh, Lem," she said, after he carried her in. "Did you do this all?"

He ducked his head, turned away. "It's nothing special," he said. "Same as everyone has."

"Better work than most people have," said Harra, and that was true, and he felt like his chest would burst from her noticing that. She turned and put her arm around him, pulled him in for a kiss. "You're a good man, Lem Csurik," she said.

 

#

The thing to do would be to die. It'd make everyone's life easier. Not to look like he killed himself, because then Harra might have to think that he was sorry, and that'd make moving on harder. He had to die and make it look like it was his own fault. Not too hard, in the Dendarii Mountains. There were ways enough to die when you were trying to avoid it that it wouldn't be hard to miss one of them. Lean out too far over that rock, eat the glossy red berries that hung down in streamers on the side of that tree.

Then Harra would know that justice was done, and Speaker Karal wouldn't have to start a feud with the Csuriks, and everyone in Silvy who didn't need a Lord Vorkosgian hanging around the Vale and maybe asking questions about taxes and the legalities of their maple mead stills could go back to their lives. Course, it would make life easier for Ma Mattulich too, to sit and cluck about how the Csurik boy was never good enough, and poison blood, and . . . Lem's face hardened. If Harra had wanted it, maybe he could have . . . no. No, he wasn't going to make Ma Mattulich's life easier, not even if it meant living. Living to face Harra.

Once, when he was a boy they had gotten a ten pound salmon up on the boat, and then Lem had turned to say something to Sascha, and had knocked the fish back into the water with his elbow. It had been a hard winter, and they needed the fish like anything. And the whole day, the whole week, he had been thinking how things had been fine before, totally fine and happy and everything was fine, and then it was nothing but thinking how he'd take that back.

He should have known. He had told himself that he thought it was safe, but he knew what Ma Mattulich was like. He had known what Gran Mattulich had been too, and he should have known. And just gone back, just been there with the old lady. Harra would have come, and Raina would have quieted, and . . . it would all have been fine. But he wanted to get out, and then . . . . Lem sat on the lee side of a mossy rock, and sobbed into his arm. It had all gone wrong.

If Harra was there, she'd tell him . . . . No. Harra wanted to see him killed, now. He could go back, and talk to the Vorkosgian, and then. He sobbed again. And then Harra's face, when she learned that it was her mother who had killed her daughter. Ma Mattulich was hard as iron, but she was all the family that Harra had, growing up. She fought like a wolf for Harra, and got back the same. To kick that away, when she had lost Raina, to see the look when Harra learned. Better to eat the berries somewhere they'd find him.

Lem took a drink of water, and let his thoughts chase each other around. Harra and her mother, The mutie lord who'd come to kill the man who killed a mutie baby, the Karal and the Csurik. And a small, catfaced little baby. So very small. Her fingers had been so small, her toes. . . he sobbed again, tried to wish the world back the way it was, before he had left Raina with her grandmother.

#

There wasn't any good reason for the Naismith Hall dormitories to have leaky roofs. It was true that they were there for scholarship students, and others who couldn't afford the luxuries of Hassadar, and it was true that Lem and Harra couldn't afford better. But with the machines they had for construction, there was no reason why a roof should leak. Old Pa Csurik had been blind in one eye and drunk in the other, and he could have made a better roof with a box of old shingles and a rotted out old oak.

The problem wasn't just their room. It was the way the drains from the upstairs rooms spatted down on the corner where their roof met the edge of the wall, and the way they used steel where pine would have done better, and he couldn't take things out because there were wires and they had signed a paper that threatened all sorts of things if they wrecked up the student housing.

"What are you doing?" asked Harra, coming in the door.

"Fixing the leak," said Lem, through a mouth full of nails. "Won't be long."

There was a long, dangerous pause. "They get everything we have if you break the roof," said Harra.

Lem shrugged. "Not a bad thing, that," he said. "We've got, what? A house in Silvy Vale?"

"Yes," said Harra. "And they'll take that away because you can't stand a drop or two of water when there's a heavy storm."

"What'll they do with it?" he asked. "Someone from the city moves in, it'd be good for Silvy Vale. Nobody does, someone else in Silvy gets a house."

"It's our house, Lem," said Harra.

"I could build a better one," he said. "I've been learning--"

"We agreed," said Harra, "that you were going to make 'hand-work, unique one-off items,' like the Lord Vorkosgian suggested."

"I tried," said Lem. "I did."

"And you were doing well!" said Harra. There were cracks in the calm; Lem got the bit of wood he had cut into position, and started hammering. It would finish the job, if he hadn't made some other mistake.

"There was a man who paid me three hundred marks," said Lem. "Three hundred! For a chair."

"We could--"

"It wasn't a good chair."

"It was," said Harra. "If you couldn't do the work, I'd not ask it."

"The chairs we have here are stronger, and softer, and better. He wanted a chair to look at, not to sit in. I can't do it."

There was another, longer pause.

"I've got some work building," said Lem.

"Three hundred marks for a day's work, work?"

"Three hundred for a month," said Lem. He got the last nail into place, set it with one struck, drove it home with the other. There. Proper job, done right. "It's fair pay."

There was another pause. Lem came down from the ladder, turned, and saw Harra sobbing at the table. He rushed over. "It's okay," he said. "I'll go back and make chairs if you like. I didn't mean to--"

"No," said Harra, angry through her tears. "Don't dare. You're building houses?"

Lem nodded, trying to find the words to say. "Build," said Harra. "Learn."

He patted her shoulder. There was an ice between them. Some days thinner, some days thicker, and he couldn't always tell which it was. 'I'm sorry,' he wanted to say, but he didn't. He was, but he didn't know for what.

#

There was a funeral, in a way. There was a body, and it had to be buried, or it would have stank up the street. But it wasn't a funeral for real; it was like burying a horse.

Harra didn't go, but Lem did. The satisfaction in piling dirt on the old lady might have been small, but he didn't want to miss it. He didn't hate Harra's mother more than Harra did, but though his was a smaller hate, it was purer. If that old lady hadn't. . . he cut that thought short. It could spiral on him. It did spiral on him, when the stones cracked in winter, or when he had a third drink when two had been enough. Well enough to pile dirt on her in the midsummer sun.

Truth was, it was only chance that had given him that satisfaction. Students got leave for the funeral when a parent died, but Harra's mother was already dead, as part of the sentence for her crimes, so they'd have had to stay in Hassadar for the burying. But Mara Mattulich had died a couple of days before Midsummer, when they'd have been visiting Silvy Vale anyway.

There weren't jokes during the burying, and there wasn't solemnity either. People still felt a little mixed about Mara. She was evil, like a submerged log is evil to a boat, but her fangs had long been pulled. She was. . . well, she was dead, and that was good enough.

Part of the sentence had been that Harra owned Mara's house all along, so it wasn't like she had an estate to settle. Harra had never been cruel about that. Being cruel would have meant acting like her mother was a person, and Harra never saw any reason to do that.

"I'd burn it," she said, looking at the house. "Burn it, and everything in it. But I don't want to look like I'm making an offering for the dead."

"What'll you do?" asked Lem, coming up beside her.

"You had a good idea," she said, and he felt a sudden vague panic, trying to remember if he had suggested something about that house at any point over the years. "If we can sell a house in Silvy to someone from the city, it'd be good for the Vale."

"Not sure they'll buy," said Lem. "It's a ways--"

"Not buy, exactly," said Harra. "I'll donate it to the Teacher's college, for the graduation. If they can find a way to turn a profit on it, it'd be good for them, and good for Silvy. If not, it's their problem."

Lem thought it over, and smiled. "On the other hand," he said. "We'd need a place to build the school. Can always build more houses at the edge of town, but this'd be a good place in the middle of things."

Harra looked at him, and smiled, and his heart leapt. It was the same smile as at the bonfire, all those years ago. It was always the same smile, but it came through so rarely. "You're a good man, Lem Csurik," she said.

#

The problem with indoor plumbing . . . well, there were a bunch of problems with indoor plumbing. It meant that you needed running water, and not just what you might get with a rain barrel and pump system. Running water meant pipes, which meant pipes that might freeze. And a toilet meant that you had to have a hole in your wall, or in your foundation, and it had to be sealed against cold and rats. And the seals always started off fine, but started leaking a few years after you came to rely on them. But the biggest problem with indoor plumbing was once you had it for a while, it was powerfully difficult to switch back to outhouses, especially during the winter.

In Silvy Vale, running water wasn't a huge problem; they had a lake, and they were close enough to it that the whole pump system had been dropped in and set up over the course of three days. But indoor plumbing had become a marker for progressives, which meant that it was something that Lem had to encourage, which meant that he spent more of his free time unclogging pipes than he had ever wanted.

This time, it was Pel and Piotr Veivel who had tried to flush a leftover pot of soup and dumplings, after the dumplings had conglomerated into a single doughy lump. At least they had stopped using the toilet when it started backing up, for once. Still, when Lem headed back home, he was ready for dinner and then straight to sleep. The way Harra was pacing on the porch, though, meant that it would be a while before he could get either of those.

"Who is it?" he asked, as he came up.

"It's Karal," she said.

Lem did a quick calculation. "Zed's old enough he doesn't have to. . . Anatoly's been cutting?"

She dismissed that with a shake of her head. "Toly's not the brightest, but he doesn't miss a lesson ever, even when he's sick enough I have to send him home." She turned away, started her pacing again. "It's that he doesn't stop the others—the Ernrics and the Mize and the others—from keeping their boys back once they turn twelve. They'll come in on weeks when there's no work, but—"

Lem considered the problem. It was a real one. "Mize aren't a problem," he said. "I'll stop fixing their toilets."

Harra stopped her pacing and looked at him. "There are a lot of Mize," she said. "Not all of them have switched."

Lem shrugged. "Those that have'll make the others fall into line," he said. "And it'll make them want to learn how to do it, so I won't be able to twist their arms like that again, which'll mean less plumbing for me. Emrics are trickier."

"Emrics," said Harra, "and the Karelis."

"That it?" asked Lem.

"No," said Harra. "But if the Emrics and Karelis start coming, the rest'll fall in line."

Lem nodded. There were a few Emrics—cousins and second cousins—who had plumbing, but not enough for that sort of pressure. And the Karelis . . . hell, there were rumors that Ma Karelis had burnt an offering for Ma Mattulich, despite what Lord Miles had said.

"Taxes," he said, finally.

Harra looked puzzled.

"Karal's not going after them, because each time, the kid is sick, or the kid is truant, and he's not so young to go chasing them each time, and Alex has the goats to mind, so he's not there every day neither. But he could do it, if he wanted. Kid goes truant, Karal and Alex show up at the parents house, and do a proper tax inventory. Goats, and potatoes, and maple mead stills." One of the things a Speaker did was find a balance between paying taxes and laying in a little extra for winter. A couple of sessions following the letter of the law, and anyone would have to break.

"He could," said Harra. "He won't."

Lem had sat himself down, after Harra had stopped pacing. He stood up again. "He will," he said. "We go back with Karal a way, after all. I'll talk to him."

"You'd?" asked Harra. "You'd use her?"

Lem hesitated, turned away from Harra, and towards the town proper, where'd Karal was probably setting down to dinner. "It's the Raina Csurik school," he said. "We're using that every day."

There was no response. "I'm sorry," he said. He didn't know why he said it, but once he started, he didn't stop. "I'm sorry I was so mad, I'm sorry I was so afraid. I just. . . she was so small, and it hurt when she cried, Harra. I couldn't . . . no, that's not true. I could have. But I didn't. I'm sorry."

There was no response.

"I wasn't much of a father," he said. "You were wrong, but you were right. I could have. . . . I should have . . . she was so small, Harra."

There was no response. He squared his shoulders, got ready to head into town. Harra's hand was on his shoulder, and she turned him around, hugged him so tight and fierce he saw dots dancing at the edges of his vision. "You'll be a good father," she said, through her tears.

It staggered him. "But you . . . I thought . . . ."

"You will be a good father," said Harra, letting him go. "You will be the best father in the world."

He took a step toward her, and she stepped back, shook her head. "Go talk to Karal," she said. "Fill her school."

Lem gave Harra a nod, and left. He looked back when he was down the lane a little. Harra was still there, on the wide-roofed front porch he had built, all those years ago. She was still crying, but she was smiling too, smiling like a laughing girl, with the fire shining through her hair.


End file.
